Cyanide Grapes

In early March 1989, the U.S. Embassy in Santiago and a Chilean export company got several anonymous phone calls warning that some Chilean fruit would be poisoned with cyanide. On March 11, a load of fruit arrived in Philadelphia from Chile and sat on the dock overnight. On this day, March 12th, FDA inspectors confiscated three grapes from the load and on March 13, the FDA announced an embargo on all Chilean fruit, saying two grapes had cyanide in them.